Living on the edge: Trying to find the balance between work and play

Have you ever felt, as a business owner, that you can never truly leave the office?  That is exactly how I feel right now.  As I write this blog, I am sitting in an airport, waiting for my flight for a luxurious seven days away to visit with my family.  Seven days of me packing my laptop around, checking my emails, answering phone calls, and still running payroll, all the usual tasks of a virtual bookkeeper.  Hardly a vacation.

Not that I am complaining.  I am one of the fortunate business owners that has a phenomenal team and business partner supporting me every step of the way.  Without that support system, my time away from the office would look much different.  However, as most business owners will contest, it is extremely hard to step away from the office and truly take a much-needed physical and mental break. 

For me, I am the worst culprit, the master of my own demise.  I set myself up for never getting those full days away from the office. I catch myself looking at my work emails early in the morning or late at night, and on the weekends, outside of “business hours”.  Is there a reason that I need to do this?  Absolutely not, apart from my perfectionist ways of making sure that nothing gets missed or that my clients will feel that they are being taken care of.  As my family will say, I am “over the top” at times and need to learn the art of sitting down and enjoying a minute.  Clearly, I need to set boundaries between my work life and family life and start taking care of my own needs, just as well as I try to look after my clients. 

I am not alone in this; many business owners, or at least the ones that I have spoken to, are in the same boat as me.  So what needs to change?  Obviously, it is the mindset of the owner; at least it is for me. When we hear of people insisting on working on the weekends on “important stuff that needs to get done” (I am calling out my business partner here who just said those words to me), we need to figure out the why.  Why do they need to work on days when they should be enjoying their time away from the office?  The answer is quite simple: there are not the right processes or systems in place to ensure that the wheel of the business will keep on turning long after they have left the building. 

Putting the systems in place does take the time that you may feel you do not have and energy that you most likely do not want to expend.  But you must look down the road and see where these important steps will take you.  Without the stepping-stones in place, there is no clear direction for your team, and without a good, organized team, you will never get those much-needed days off.  Let us think about a young child, learning to walk or swim for the first time. Sure, you can throw them in the pool and see what happens (not advisable!), or you can hold their hands while they take their first steps or learn to float on their own.  You guide and support them to learn to do it on their own.

This is the same analogy you need to take with your team.  If you do not teach or train them well, they will falter, leaving you the little option to always be there to help them out or put out a fire.  You will see the fruits of your labor down the road when you need to take time away and you can trust that everything will run smoothly without you.  No different than constructing a building: without a great foundation, it will fall.  Think about your business like this.  You cannot do everything on your own and you need to trust and rely on your team.  Will they make mistakes?  Absolutely!  However, so will you, especially if you do not give yourself a break. 

This same training applies to your clients or customers.  If they know that you will pick up the phone after hours or answer their emails on a Sunday afternoon, you know they will learn to expect that over time.  Set boundaries early on.  Remember: their lack of planning does not constitute an emergency at your end.  Be clear with your business hours and stick to them! 

As for me, I am about to board my flight and I am hoping to take some of this advice and apply it this week.  Maybe I will get a full day here and there to enjoy my time with my daughter.  She deserves that, and so do I.  Emails and phone calls can wait, but time with my family is flying by me, and I am going to enjoy every minute with them as much as I can.

April 14th, 2022